


the flames burned in our hearts

by tosca1390



Category: Bridgerton Series - Julia Quinn
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-21
Updated: 2014-01-21
Packaged: 2018-01-09 11:54:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1145672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He is not an emotionally expressive man. Perhaps she should save him the trouble.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Or, five times Anthony was an emotional basketcase about things, and one time he expressed himself perfectly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the flames burned in our hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magisterequitum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterequitum/gifts), [empressearwig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/empressearwig/gifts), [spyglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spyglass/gifts).



> I got no excuse for this. 
> 
> Minor (non-graphic) description of blood, fyi. 
> 
> For everybody.

*

{1}

 

“You’re spending an awful lot of time at home,” Kate says idly. 

A dark, questioning gaze flicks from the open ledger book spread out on Anthony’s desk to her, and then back. “I do live here,” Anthony replies lightly. 

Her mouth twists and Kate threads her fingers together in her lap as she sits on the settee, her injured leg stretched out in front of her on a footstool. She had been perfectly content in the library, situated comfortably by Anthony before he left for the day’s business, when he had arrived home out of the blue in the middle of the afternoon. With nary a word, he’d collected her in his arms, books and all, and relocated her to his study. _Better to keep an eye on you,_ he’d said with that imperious air of his that she found terribly attractive. 

She didn’t quite understand why he thought she was so hell-bent on escaping. He had only caught her trying to escape _one_ time, and that was two weeks ago. 

(Of course, she had successfully escaped the house the week previously, with the assistance of Daphne and Colin. But Anthony didn’t need to know that. For catching her, he had hauled her back upstairs and all but tied her to the bed, cast and all.)

(She had liked it a little too much to be a proper woman of society, but he didn’t need to know that either.)

So, she sits on the settee opposite his desk in his burgundy-hued study, peering at him over her book. The scratch of his quill against the parchment soothes as well as intrigues her. For the first month and a half of their marriage, he was hardly ever home. Now, he was home quite often. Did he really think she wouldn’t notice the difference?

“I sincerely hope you aren’t neglected business on account of my injury,” she says, drumming her fingertips on the calfskin cover of her book. A month of house arrest (and it has been house arrest, whatever Anthony likes to tell her), and she is reduced to reading poetry.

Anthony gestures vaguely with his hand, and looks back down at his ledger books. Suppressing a laugh, she sits back against the settee and stares at him, at the reflection of afternoon sunlight in his chestnut hair, the strong line of his jaw. 

God, would it really be so interminable to admit that he avoided the house because she was there? She didn’t take it as a slight, considering how terribly hard he had worked to avoid an emotional attachment to her. In fact, she takes a little bit of pleasure in the thought; perhaps he really had loved her this whole time. Or at least liked her more than he’d let himself believe. 

A smile plays at her mouth as she taps her toes on the thick carpet. Somehow, she had caught Anthony Bridgerton. The thought is enough to make a woman confident in everything she does. 

“I suppose once my cast is off, you’ll be back to your full day of appointments,” she says after a moment, looking at him from beneath long dark lashes. 

His shoulders tighten and he glances at her, eyebrow arched. “Do you not enjoy the pleasure of my company?” he asks acerbically, setting down his quill. 

Kate swallows a grin. “I think you know I do,” she says, tilting her head. 

A wicked smile plays at the corners of his mouth. 

“But given how often you were out of the house before the incident with the carriage, and how often you are home now, I hope that your business hasn’t suffered on my account,” she adds, resting her chin in the palm of her hand as she props her elbow on the arm of the settee. 

Anthony blinks owlishly, apparently short for words. He is not an emotionally expressive man. Perhaps she should save him the trouble. “Kate, I – “

“However,” she continues, picking her book up with her free hand and glancing back at the printed verses inscribed within, “if you were to continue to spend more time at home, even once I am fully recovered, I would not be opposed.”

Her eyes flicker up, meeting his. There is a look of such warmth and affection in his dark eyes, it catches her off-guard. 

“Is that so, Kate?” he asks softly. 

Smiling, she shrugs. “Perhaps I’ve grown accustomed to your company, but it wouldn’t be the worst way to spend my days. With you,” she replies, the teasing note softening from her voice into something warmer. 

He pushes back from his desk and rises, crossing the room to her perch. “I believe you’re paying me a compliment, wife,” he says as he crouches next to her. A broad warm hand cups her cheek, and she can feel the love and affection from that one touch. 

“I suppose I can do that from time to time,” she says, tilting into his touch. “I wouldn’t get used to it, though.”

Laughing, he leans into kiss her. “I wouldn’t dare.”

The strange and abrupt difference in Anthony’s time spent away from her is never mentioned again. After all, Kate’s an intelligent woman. She knows exactly what was going on, and he knows she knows. What difference does it make if he says it or not?

 

{2}

 

Over time, Kate learns how terrifically emotionally stunted Anthony truly is. 

Perhaps it is the weight of responsibility on his shoulders from such a young age. Perhaps he is naturally emotionally reticent. Whatever the reason, he’s not an emotionally expressive man. She doesn’t mind; she loves him just the way he is, and she knows he loves her. If she has to read between the lines of his mouth and teasing words to discern the nut of what he really wants to say, she doesn’t mind. She likes the intellectual challenge. 

There are some days though, that she just doesn’t have the energy for it. Today, she hasn’t been able to keep anything down – not even toast. Though her pregnancy is barely two months along, according to her math, she hasn’t been incapacitated by morning sickness, until now. She sends her lady’s maid to write out notes of excuse and apology to those in her appointment book and retreats back to bed in her dressing gown, her hair loose and her stomach heaving. Luckily, it being November, there are just a few to send.

The bedroom is chilly and she sinks under the bedcovers, curled tightly in on herself. She’s utterly tired, a headache lingering behind her eyes, and she’s so – tired. She’s awfully glad Anthony has one of his busy days today, because sometimes his hovering, while adorable, is overbearing. Especially now that she’s pregnant, he’s been worse than usual – worse than the carriage incident, even. Until she feels like herself again, she doesn’t want to see anyone, including him. 

Unfortunately, one of her cancelled appointments is with Violet Bridgerton. Even more unfortunately, Anthony happens to be at Bridgerton House when the note of apology arrives. 

Therefore, as Kate alternately dozes with the covers over her head and dives for the chamber pot next to her bed, she is wholly unprepared for her husband to come storming up the stairs in a huff. 

“What’s the matter with you?” comes a brusque, worried voice from the doorway.

Kate tugs the winter quilt from down over her head to peer blearily at her wide-eyed husband. “Oh god,” she mutters, the blaspheme spilling from her mouth unfiltered. 

Anthony, gaze narrowed, stalks over to the bed and sits down on his side. “Are you ill?”

“Do I usually loll about in bed at all hours?” she retorts crossly. 

“No,” he says, reaching out to touch her forehead. “But I would have thought you’d tell me if you were unwell.”

She shifts away from the touch, forehead crinkling. “I don’t – I’m certain I shall be fine soon,” she mumbles. She is just so tired and so ill, and she thinks if he touches her again, she’ll be sick. 

Anthony is very quiet, strangely so. She lifts her lashes to look at him and finds him staring at her as if he doesn’t know her. His eyes are very wide, his cheeks pale. 

“Kate - ,” he murmurs, his hands flat on his thighs. 

“I am not well-equipped for company this morning, husband. Perhaps later in the day,” she counters, trying to inject a teasing note into her voice. She doesn’t mean to be harsh with him; she is just so ill this morning. She is cold and ill-tempered and nauseous, and now he’s looking at her so strangely. In the early winter light, he is strangely still, sitting next to her. 

“Anthony?” she asks after a long moment of silence. Her brow furrows and she scoots further up the pillows, mouth dry and tasting rather foul. She presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth, nose wrinkling. “Are you – “

“You can’t keep anything down,” he says quietly. 

“Not so far,” she replies, frowning. 

Immediately he rises, still pale in the face. “All right,” he says, and turns to leave. 

Staring, she watches the broad back of him retreat out of the bedchamber and sighs. She tucks herself back under the covers and rolls onto her side, her knees curled up to her chest. In a sea of linens and quilts she is alone, and she feels quite alone – too tired to chase after him, too tired to suss out what exactly he is trying to say now. 

“Damnit,” she curses into the blankets, into the dark cave she has made for herself. She shuts her eyes and breathes. In and out. In and out. 

The next time she opens her eyes, the weight shifts on Anthony’s side of the bed. Strong fingers creep over the edge of the bed and tug down gently, revealing her to the wan November sunlight. 

“I brought you broth,” Anthony says, his face distinctly serious, his gaze soft. A tray sits next to him, steam rising from a bowl. 

She blinks, her stomach heaving. “Anthony, really – “

“Please just try some,” he says, a pleading tone in his voice she isn’t sure she’s ever heard before. 

Watching him, watching the lines of his face and the sheen of his eyes, she is sure she’s missing something. Sure he’s trying to tell her something, in his own convoluted way. One of these days, he’ll just come out and say something overwhelmingly emotional, and she won’t know what to do with him. 

Today isn’t this day, and she’s too tired to figure him out now. 

“All right,” she murmurs, shifting to sit up against the headboard and the pillows. He sits next to her, watches as she takes spoonful after spoonful of chicken broth. It miraculously stays down, and once she finishes, she lays back down and he stretches out next to her, smoothing his hand through her loose hair.

The next day, in visiting Violet, Kate discovers that chicken broth was a trick of Edmund Bridgerton’s, when Violet was pregnant and suffering from morning sickness. When she sees Anthony next, in the front parlor of their home, she joins him on the settee, takes his hand and sets it on her still-flat stomach. 

“I’m very happy,” she tells him, eyes bright as she runs her fingertips over the back of his hand. 

Anthony blinks, and smiles slowly. “What an improvement from yesterday,” he says archly. 

Rolling her eyes with unladylike verve, she leans into kiss him. Even if he won’t say it – or can’t say it – she knows he’s happy too. 

 

{3}

 

The naming of Kate and Anthony’s first child isn’t as simple as it would seem to be from the outside. 

Alone for the first time in what seems like days, Kate sits in the rocking chair Anthony commissioned especially for her, their two-day-old son asleep in her arms. He is the picture of his father already, a fuzz of dark hair on top of his small head, his dark eyes shut to the world. It is spring, the sunlight spreading golden across the hardwood floors. Their son is strong and healthy, and nameless. 

Every time she’s asked Anthony his thoughts, he’s been strangely reticent. _Whatever you think, Kate,_ he has said more than once. It seems rather distant for a man who loves children and has practically been a surrogate father to his siblings for over a decade. 

“You shouldn’t be up and about.”

Kate cranes her neck and smiles at her husband. “I am quite well.”

Anthony strolls into the nursery and rests his hand on the back of her chair. “Most women are in bed for a week after childbirth.”

“How many times must I remind you that I am not most women?” she says archly. The baby shifts and makes a soft mewl of a sound in his sleep. 

“You are above and beyond,” he says with a warm smile, leaning down to kiss her. 

She opens her mouth under hers, deepening the kiss. He is so odd, her husband. His hand settles in her loose hair and she sighs into his mouth. 

“Kate,” he whispers, voice aching. 

Opening her eyes, she watches as he crouches next to her. His hand moves to cover hers as it rests under their son’s small form. There is a strange sheen to his eyes, one she’s seen just once before. When he told her of the strange night after his father’s death. 

Suddenly, she knows exactly what he wants to say, but can’t. 

“Edmund,” she murmurs, watching Anthony’s face.

His eyes flicker up to hers, his hand stilling over hers. Dark hair falls over his brow as his shoulders tense under the fine cut of his waistcoat. 

“That seems a solid choice of name for our son,” she says quietly. 

Throat tight, he swallows. She follows the movement of it with her eyes. 

“Do you think so, Kate?” he asks. 

In response, she leans in and kisses him. “A new start,” she says against his lips. 

The hand not on their son tangles in her hair, holding her fiercely close. “I love you,” he says roughly, and she smiles against his lips. 

Perhaps she is getting better at reading him after all. 

 

{4}

 

“I wish you had been there, Kate,” Anthony says, striding back and forth from one end of her study at Bridgerton House to the other. There is a strange frustrated gleam to his eyes, a deep frown that only appears when it concerns one of his siblings. 

Rubbing her pregnant belly, Kate leans back in her chair and sighs. Edmund is down for his afternoon nap, and she had been looking forward to a spell of peace and quiet. Silly her. She married into the Bridgertons, after all. 

“Just out of nowhere, Colin announces he won’t be marrying Penelope. And she’s standing right there! What an idiot,” he mutters, taking another turn around the room. 

Wetting her lips, Kate reaches around to grind the heel of her hand into the small of her back. “All of you Bridgerton brothers have a severe case of foot-in-mouth disorder. Don’t be so quick to censure Colin for something you all suffer from,” she says archly. 

Anthony sends her a quick glare. “You’re not being particularly helpful, as is your wifely duty.”

“Funny, I don’t remember that in those vows,” she retorts, wrinkling her nose. “It would help if I knew what kind of help you wanted.”

Brow furrowing, he strides towards the settee and sits, shaking his head. “Poor Penelope. She’s a lovely girl. She really is. I don’t understand why Colin is so – so – “

Kate wets her lips and continues to rub her back. She has a good idea of why Colin is acting the way he is – but she does hate to interfere in the matters of brotherhood. The Bridgertons are so strange when it comes to their relationships with each other; she’s still trying to navigate the labyrinth, even after nearly three years of marriage. 

“I saw her home,” he says abruptly, dark eyes unblinking as he watches her. “She was – she’s a collected, friendly, pleasant girl. He could do worse.”

“It would be hard to do better,” she offers softly. “I’ve always admired Penelope. You know, when you rescued her from Cressida Cowper at Aubrey Hall, I think that’s when I fell in love with you.”

Anthony’s tensely-lined face relaxes into a brief, wicked smile. “Not when I kissed you with reckless abandon after finding you spying on me in my study?”

“Not really,” she says airily. “Why would I have wanted the rake when I could have the man?”

His gaze softens, his face flushed just slightly. “Sometimes, I think you love me.”

“Sometimes, I think I do too.”

He sighs through a laugh, running a hand through his tousled hair. “Out of all my brothers, it is Colin I don’t understand hardly at all,” he mutters. 

Kate drums her fingers along her spine, sighing. “Colin – he’s a free spirit,” she says at last, hoping she’s reading her husband rightly. “He isn’t like you, or Benedict, or even Gregory. He wants adventure right now. He wants to spread his wings outside of the Bridgerton name.”

Anthony’s brow furrows deeply. Hesitating slightly, she takes a deep breath and plows onward. “Perhaps you should let him – travel?” she offers. “Otherwise, he will continue to feel pressured to perhaps marry where he does not want to.”

He grunts, leaning forward. “Penelope said the same thing.”

“What a bright woman,” she murmurs. Colin really couldn’t do any better. Not that he could see that right now. 

Silent, he looks at her. She smiles slightly and extends her hand out to him. “You’ve done so well by all of your siblings, Anthony,” she says softly. He rises and comes to her, takes her hand in his and helps her from the chair. “You never need to worry about that. Colin is just – he’s just different from you. He needs something different. You can help him with that, too.”

He pulls her close to him, the rounded swell of her belly pressing against his front as he wraps his arms around her. The heel of his hand goes to the small of her back and presses down; she arches into the touch gratefully. 

“You know me quite well, Kate,” he says into her ear, his breath warm against her skin. 

She smiles and sighs, the sound melting into a groan. “Keep doing that,” she murmurs, her fingers sinking into his shoulders. 

The smile is evident in his voice as he lets her lean her weight on him. “With pleasure.”

 

{5}

 

It happens while Anthony is away in the country on estate business. 

It is August – a hot, oppressive, painfully-warm August, rainless and cloudless. The sun is unrelenting and Kate can barely stand to be outside, even though both Miles and Edmund – three and five, respectively – both love the carriage rides around the park near Bridgerton House. Simon, in his generosity, takes them out for rides during the day with David, giving her a hour or two to herself. 

While the boys are out, Kate generally takes a nap. She is just entering the third month of a pregnancy that hasn’t been as smooth as her first two, and she is more tired than usual. One afternoon, three days before Anthony is expected to return, she wakes from her nap in the grips of pain, cramps rippling through her middle. When she pulls back the bedcovers and finds blood, for the first time in her life, she has no idea what to do. 

Violet comes immediately, and brings the doctor. It is just a few hours of pain, of bleeding. The spotting may continue, but with the new bedsheets, it is as if it never happened. 

“Have you sent Anthony a note?” Violet asks in her soft, warm way, holding Kate’s hand between her own. The boys are at the Bruton Street house with Eloise and Hyacinth, to stay there for the time being. The doctor recommends Kate rest for at least two days, if not longer. For once, Kate cannot argue. 

Kate shakes her head no, her face turned against the cool pillow. There is no breeze to be had in all of London; the room is stifling, and all Kate wants to do is cry. 

Pursing her lips, Violet strokes Kate’s sweat-damp forehead. Hair sticks to the side of her neck, the line of her cheek. “Would you like me to send it?” she offers. 

There is nothing Kate can say. She wouldn’t know how to put it to paper, except in the bluntest of ways. There is only this strange sense of emptiness, of hollowness. She’s certainly glad he wasn’t here to see it; Anthony is barely tolerable when he hovers over her during her morning sickness. She can’t imagine what he would have done this afternoon. 

“I’ll take care of it, dear,” Violet says at last, her voice strong and unwavering in the purple summer darkness. 

Kate says nothing, just wraps her fingers around Violet’s and shuts her eyes against the thick heat. 

The next evening, Kate is still in bed, curled up into herself. Violet has just brought the boys back home; she can hear the three of them down the hall in the nursery for dinner. A more informal grandmother the boys couldn’t have been blessed with, and Kate is grateful. All she wants is relief; relief from the aches settled into her stomach and between her thighs, relief from the heat, relief from – guilt, she supposes. 

They didn’t even know what sex the baby was, she thinks absently. The baby was too small, underdeveloped. 

The noises from the streets below, full of carriage wheels and horses’ hooves, is no comfort to her now. She stares at Anthony’s empty side of the bed and listens. There is the sharp unsettling of gravel, the harsh opening and closing of the front door that echoes through the house. Kate shuts her eyes against a sudden influx of tears, hot and thick and unfamiliar. 

Her sons’ feet scurry down the hall, shouts of _Papa! Papa!_ filling the hall. Violet’s low tones. Kate hears nothing of Anthony. She wraps her arms around herself and breathes out thickly. 

The bedchamber door opens. She does not shift or open her eyes. She feels unbearably exposed, curled up on top of the bedcovers in just a loose shift, her hair in a damp braid over her shoulder. He has seen her in all states, and yet this, she wanted to avoid so badly. 

“Kate – “

His voice is absolutely wrecked from just her name, like the gravel outside. She wets her dry lips and looks at him as his weight sinks into the bed. 

He looks – he is absolutely pale, cravat undone and waistcoat-less. She has never seen him in such public disarray, but for the day before her carriage accident. 

A tentative hand reaches out to her, and then retreats. “Kate. I just – “

Guilt swims behind his clouded eyes. It wrings at her heart, pulls her out of herself just the slightest. 

“It’s all right,” she says at last, voice hoarse from disuse. She reaches out a hand and takes his where it lays on the bedcovers. “It’s not your fault.”

If she had read his mind, she couldn’t have known him better. At her words, his face crumples into harsh lines, his eyes squeezing shut. His hand clutches at hers. 

“Are you all right?” he asks roughly. 

She nods, smoothing her thumb over his knuckles. His skin is damp with sweat, from the ride. “You shouldn’t have ridden the whole way today,” she says quietly. “The heat – “

“I don’t – “ he shakes his head and opens his eyes, staring at her fiercely. “I don’t _care_ about that.”

Softening, she brings his hand to her mouth and kisses his knuckles. “It isn’t your fault, Anthony.”

Jaw tight, he shifts closer and settles on the bed next to her. “It wasn’t yours, either.”

Kate turns her cheek into the pillow and begins to cry. They are silent, harsh, hot tears that stream down her cheeks and soak the sheets under her. It is the first time she can remember crying in front of him. Gently, without words, Anthony wraps an arm around her and tucks her close to his chest. She sinks her face against his loose linen shirt and cries as he strokes his hand down her back. 

He doesn’t say anything. There is nothing to say. But she knows, as she feels the sharp burst of his heartbeat under her cheek, what he is thinking. 

 

{+1}

 

“Oh _god_ ,” Kate moans as Anthony’s clever hands slide over the buttons of her dress. “We have _company_ \- “

“My siblings are perfectly capable of entertaining themselves, wife,” he murmurs as her dress slides over her shoulders and breasts, revealing her lack of chemise. “Oh, _Kate_ ,” he says, voice deliciously deep. “No chemise?”

She tips her head back against his study door and smiles, reading the love and pleasure in his gaze. After ten years, she’s become an expert at reading between the lines. “The cut of the dress didn’t allow for one.”

He smirks and cups her naked breasts in his hands, pressing her back against the door. “Your modiste is a very wealthy woman thanks to my gratitude,” he murmurs, his thumbs rubbing against her peaked nipples as he kisses the line of her throat. 

“You are incorrigible,” she says breathlessly as she runs her hands through his thick hair, just a touch of grey at the temples. “Your siblings have gone to great lengths to celebrate our anniversary, and – “

“I love you,” he says quite abruptly, meeting her eyes. 

She pauses mid-sentence, blinking owlishly. His hand slips over her skirts and under, to cup the slick flesh of her sex; she inhales sharply, keeping his gaze even as her body flushes with desire. 

Anthony blinks and smiles, a soft and generous curve. “I do. I love you. To be with you is the greatest joy of my life,” he says quietly, stroking between her thighs. 

Shifting restlessly against his touch, she curls her hands around his shoulders and pulls him close. “Anthony, you don’t – “

“I know sometimes it can be difficult –“

She snorts. She can’t help it.

His eyebrows arch imperiously. 

“For the love of god,” she says crossly, beginning to pant as his thumb curls at her clit. “Do you have to do this _now_?”

“Is there a better time for you, my love?” he asks a little too sweetly. Two blunt fingers slip inside of her, and she moans with the stretch, arching into the touch. She hitches her thigh up over his hip, trying to drag him closer to her with a low wrecked sound. 

“You, and our children, and the life you’ve helped me create and live,” he breathes as he lowers his mouth to her exposed breast, tongue sliding over the swell to her taut nipple. “My god, Kate. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Tears edge the backs of her eyes. She cups his face in her hands and brings him up for a kiss, shuts her eyes and sinks into his mouth as his fingers sink into her, his thumb circling her clit and sending shudders of pleasure down her spine. 

“You picked a hell of a time to become sentimental and expressive,” she whispers breathlessly into his mouth, her fingers twisting in the hair at the nape of his neck. 

He grins and slips his hand from between her legs. A soft whine drags out of her throat as he does, even as he unbuttons his breeches and pushes up her skirts. She tightens her thighs over his hips as he lifts her up and sinks into her with a low groan, pressing her to the door. 

“What can I say? You move me to insanity,” he says archly before his mouth sinks over hers, her bare breasts pressed to his shirt. Her nipples rub against the linen and she sighs hoarsely, arching her back. 

“Insufferable man,” she moans, dragging her nails over his back as he moves his hips against hers in a deep, steady rhythm. 

“You love me,” he breathes, taking her mouth over and over. His tongue slides over hers, tasting her as they shudder together, pressed against the door. The sounds of their party are far, far away; but when Kate comes, she digs her fingers into his corded back muscles and moans brokenly into his mouth, quivering at his every stroke and touch. He sinks into her, his teeth soft as he bites at her bottom lip, and follows her with a low broken moan. 

“God help me, I do love you,” she says moments later, as she straightens her hair. 

He smirks and cups his hand against her cheek. “For our twentieth, I shall have to think of something equally demonstrative.”

“The bar has been set quite high. Perhaps a bed, next time,” she says archly. 

He laughs and kisses her. They are quite late to their own party. 

Kate can’t bring herself to care in the least. 

 

*


End file.
